Work in Progress

I had wanted to paint up a few Spanish light horse, and had some unused French Hussars from the Itlaleri French Command set. So a quick look at my Pinterest page for Spanish cavalry came up with these guys, technically horse grenadiers but hussars in everything but name.Because the figures I wanted to use had pelisses rather than the short coat it placed them later than I really wanted, at 1812 when they received new uniforms from the British. But they were close enough to the older uniform that I thought it worth the trouble. To make them a little more generic, I sculpted campaign dress riding trousers for the bulk of them, leaving the officer and trumpeter in their post 1812 lemon yellow riding breeches.I was pleased with a solution for the riding trousers' buttons, using the tip of a .5 drawing pencil (minus the lead) to imprint the sculpting compound. Other than that, alterations were few: I carved off the colpaks from all but the officer, swivelled a few heads as there were only two poses in the nine figures and switched one to a trumpeter with the use of an arm from some other set of cavalry.I lacked horses from the command set, however, so I used instead horses from the Italeri Prussian Currasiers set (1806/7). The shabraque was all wrong, so I sculpted a more pointy configuration and, added a pack on the back of the horse. I did a bit more work on the officer's mount, giving it a sheepskin saddle with wolf teeth fringe, and a longer shabraque, using my reference as a guide.I will post more pics of them when they are painted and mounted, but I was generally pleased with the results.

Thanks, Carlos. Your question got me digging deeper (so far I was just looking for a use of these French hussars as Spanish light horse!)I'm now suspecting they may have been overseas, probably in South America! Ah well... There is mention in Oman's army lists for 1808 Cazadores de Fernando VII (Arogoese and Valencian) but I suspect these are different.

This is a bit of translated information I could find here, where in a chart it has them posted overseas:http://caballipedia.es/Caballería_de_Fernando_VII_(2)

Unit created in 1808 by the count of Fernán Núñez in El Pardo (Madrid), from three voluntary grenadier squads.In 1812 it happens to the institute (perhaps renamed?) of húsares .

Raised by Coronel Fernan Nuñez on 15 September 1808 initially as the Regimiento F Nuñezas with 3 squadrons totalling 540 men. They soon became the Horse Grenadiers (Granaderos a Caballo de Fernando VII) and despite what their name might suggest, were light and not heavy cavalry. They were renamed Hussars (Húsares de Fernando VII) on 1 May 1811. They were one of the four regiments to remain after the 1811 reorganisation and existed until the end of the war.September 1808The Granaderos de Fernando VII were created at 3 squadrons and 540 men strength. They later became the Húsares de Fernando VII.April 1811On 6 April 1811, the greatly weaken Spanish cavalry was reformed, there were to be only four hussar regiments: Españoles, Granada, Fernando VII and Extremadura. In addition, five provincial hussar squadrons were retained: Cataluña, Aragon, Galicia, Cantabria and Castilla.

So no mention of where they might have fought. But in my miniature world they will be fighting, on occasion, in the Peninsula as a statnd-in for Spanish light cavalry.

Wow you worked a lot, thank you! (I could have done the job myself sorry!!)Very interesting infos, if they fought in South America I guess they did not longer look as smart as in the beautiful plates that you attached!!Thanks for the topic and good luck and fun with the project!!

I needed to do it. That's what I get for not doing my homework first, but I was really looking for some Spanish that those French Hussars would convert to and these worked.I found this nice image in the process - reference seems to not agree as to the colour of the plate on the bearskin, but I'm leaning towards silver.